First Singapore Woman to reach the South Pole

She has never dared to dream of herself, with six other woman from other countries holding and hugging the metal globe that symbolizes the geographical South pole one day. After all, she was just a petite woman only 1.54m in height.

But her perseverance in the trainings pulled off and her dreams had became a reality. Together with a group of women, they embarked on a 38 days journey to the South pole, and they made it. Mdm Sophia Pang was the first Singaporean woman ever to make it to the South pole.

The 37 year old was in fact the most petite amongst her counterparts from Commonwealth, but she completed the gruesome journey of 900km in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees celsius, as well as any of her peers could pull off.

The freelance IT and fitness trainer wasn't even qualified for the expedition when she first appealed to join the team. But her perseverance and determination mended her shortcomings - she was so hardworking in the training sessions that her strength almost doubled by the end of them.

One of the exercises in the arduous training course, which included a combination strength training, cardiovascular workouts, stretching and core exercises, required the trainer to pull a 120 kg heavy load across 40m. At first, Mdm Pang could only finish it in more than a minute. Now, she can complete the same task in half the time.

Mdm Pang's case is a good example of how perseverance and self-confidence can help achieve success. Although her built was initially not fit for the expedition, but with perseverance in the trainings, she improved her stature greatly and managed to complete her journey to the South Pole just as well as her fitter counterparts.

Although her legs and hands were numb from the cold and sore from the arduous journey, she still gritted her teeth and finished the 900km journey. It is really inspiring for someone like me who finds it tiring to walk a kilometer, that some things in life we find impossible, we can achieve as long as we have confidence in ourselves and persevere.

However daunting the journey ahead may seem, we can achieve anything if we defeat ourselves first. Once we can overcome our fears, worries and decadence, we are bound to succeed in anything we do.

X-team Party 28/12/09

In order to celebrate the return of our X-team (small church fellowship group for P5 to Sec 2 ) leaders from Cambodia, we held a simple party yesterday at church. We had great fun and fellowship time together.

Samuel and I had to go to school first for the second training session of the Sec 1 Orientation. At about 3pm, we finished and quickly took a bus to the Botanical Gardens, where the rest of the boys were playing.

The game we enjoyed best at the Botanical Gardens was Police and Thief. Some people were "thieves" who had to run away from us, the "police". It was fun because there were more thieves than police and they could run and hide around the whole big botanical gardens. It was easy to escape unseen.

Because of the unexpected drizzling, we headed back for church. The next session was devoted to a fun time of soccer at the small car park in our church. Because of space constraints, the other boys went to the kitchen to help out the girls in the cooking of dinner. After a tiring game of soccer, I also volunteered to cook the chicken nuggets.

Dinner was finally ready. When Mark, our worship leader, gathered volunteers for the singing session, I gleefully participated too because I personally enjoy singing.

We had a great sing-along session. Almost everyone sang together with the songs, and for those who were unfamiliar with the lyrics, they also clapped along with the rhythm of the songs.

We ended this wonderful gathering with a fantastic session of games - soccer passing, soccer juggling and poison ball. I was lucky to avoid many ball throws and was the last one standing on the "battlefield".

It was indeed a meaningful party. At first, I even wanted to skip this party so I can play my computer games...:), but it turns out that the party is much more fun.

I also found that I have improved relations with some of my friends, including Mark, Justin, Steven and Sean. It had been a great time of socializing.

I hope to have time to attend more of such gatherings in the future.